


Gods and Monsters

by Katyakora



Series: CWAweek2018 [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, CWAweek2018, Multi, implied coldwestallen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-17 15:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14834936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katyakora/pseuds/Katyakora
Summary: When last beings of great power walked the earth, it was known as the Age of Gods. This time, they called it the Age of Heroes. After all, the only difference between a hero and a god is a touch of devotion.





	Gods and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Coldwestallen week Day Three: Paranormal
> 
> This is a bit outside my usual style. Still not sure how I feel about it. Enjoy.

There was a new proverb amongst the criminals of Central City. _It's in Snart's hands now_ , they would say. Most often it was said in interrogation rooms, a glib answer to questions they had no legal response for. Joe often complained it was as if the city's thieves were all a part of some big inside joke. To Barry though, the phrase made an absurd kind of sense. After all, for a moment outside of time, the fate of all history had been literally in Snart's hands. What was mildly worrying was how that seemed to have become common knowledge in Central.

 

* * *

When last beings of great power walked the earth, it was known as the Age of Gods. This time, they called it the Age of Heroes. After all, the only difference between a hero and a god is a touch of devotion.

 

It would be Lisa Snart, ultimately, who saved her brother's life. Or, more accurately, allowed him to become more than the scattered fragments of the time stream that he was. Lisa had neither the need nor the desire for secrecy, and told anyone who might care to hear exactly how her brother had died. It was through her that the truth of his sacrifice spread throughout Central City; first through the underbelly, and then filtering up until everyone from the wealthiest politician to the lowliest beggar knew that a Central City slum kid had given his life to return free will to the universe. Most claimed not to believe it, but truly, most could not help but think it might be possible. Their city had a man who ran on lightning, who was to say what was possible?

 

It was the underbelly of Central that truly believed, however. It was the thieves who looked at a high security building and thought _if Snart can steal back time itself, then I can do this_. It was the thieves, the low-lifes, and the slum kids; it was them who began to pray to the idea of a man who was just like them who had done the impossible.

 

With the power of the Oculus and a touch of devotion from those born of his same soil, the fragments of Leonard Snart were drawn back home to be birthed once more by the city that forged him.

 

On an inauspicious night under the moon’s vibrant gaze, the solid earth beneath the city offered up the gems it cradled to become his bones. They gathered in the river where it's water became his blood, the myriad things that polluted it building organs and glands. The river carried him in its embrace to its edge so that he might crawl through the mud and the silt and the muck until it became his muscle and skin. The smog of the industrial district was his first breath and an abandoned fire in an old drum brought warmth to the heart that now beat once again in his chest. And it was a passing streak of lightning from the City's first born that put light into his cold, blue eyes.

 

Leonard Snart was reborn. And Central City had a new god.

 

He heard them. He heard the whispers, carried in the dead night air, calling his name, asking for a piece of his power, a touch of his grace. It was both maddening and grounding, keeping him from getting lost in the strands of the time stream that he could now see as plain as day. They keep him from forgetting himself and wandering right through locked doors or rusting solid steel chains into dust. His gratitude took the form of lazy guards and faulty cameras, his annoyance became hair-trigger alarms and unpickable locks. He was both aware and unaware of his own influence, still disoriented by his rebirth and this strange new existence that had been thrust upon him.

 

But he followed the strands until they led him to her, the girl who shone with gold and poison to his eyes. Lisa, his golden glider, who cared not for the water and mud dripping from his newly formed skin as she took him into her arms. She brought him home to his favourite safehouse; an apartment in the city's heart right above Saints & Sinners. She bathed and clothed him as he had once done for her, listened to the disconnected nonsense that fell from his lips in a dozen languages. The newborn god found peace wrapped in gold, as all thieves do, and his sister wept golden, toxic tears at the return of her most precious treasure.

 

In the bar below, the chanting of the devoted had begun, repeating the tale of a man crawling from the river's mud to swallow a fire whole, whose eyes glowed from the flash of the speedster's lightning long after he had passed. The tales of the strange and unnatural did not bring the brush of fear that they usually did. Tonight, the devoted felt safer in their temple than they ever had, ignorant of the proximity of their god yet subconsciously aware of the protection his presence wrought. The bar had never been more full, the devoted drawn unaware from all across the city to pay homage to his return.

 

When he woke with the dawn, Leonard still saw the threads of time and heard the whispered prayers on the wind, but his words had found the right language and order. His sister could offer no explanation for his miraculous return, only rapturous joy. Only Leonard could see the gold around her eyes, her growing divinity glowing in his eyes. She had already had a legend of her own, all it took was a touch of his power to spark her own burgeoning godhood. As far as he was concerned, such power was her birthright.

 

He chose not to tell her, knowing it was best for her to discover on her own. And in truth, he still struggled to comprehend the enormity of his own new reality. It was different for him than it was for the others. Their godhood grew within them, taking root in their souls and growing with every whispered prayer. They did not know what they were truly becoming, wrapping their power in the trappings of science. But Leonard had been born into his full power, and perhaps it was his fate to be the one who could see the world shifting and changing as these new titans wove their legends.

 

Three days passed within his unorthodox temple as he convalesced, but it's congregation could have sworn it was just a single night of revelry, while outside its walls only a handful of hours passed as the moon climbed to midnight. As the moon's rays peeked through the grimy windows, Leonard descended the stairs and looked upon the gathered crowd. He knew them for what they were; his devoted, his believers, his rescuers. They looked upon him and saw a legend resurrected, another miracle in their city of wonders.

 

He walked among them, subtly twisting the threads of their fates between his fingers, granting each a single boon of good fortune in a theft to come, as thanks and payment for what they had done unknowingly for him. They could never have put it into words, but each felt the touch of his blessing, and their revelry grew with their rapture. None would truly remember this by the time they stepped out into the morning sun, but the memory of that feeling would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

 

But not all of his believers had made it to his temple that night. Those who had felt the call yet had enough power of their own to resist, even if they had not quite known what they were resisting. So Leonard stepped out into the city that bore him and went in search of their threads, to begin cultivating the seeds of this new pantheon.

 

Winter found him first. She may have been hidden, wrapped beneath Summer’s warm skin but he knew it was Winter who sensed his presence, who sent Caitlin's steps in his direction. She was confused by the sight of him, calling him by a name he hadn't heard since he was a child. But beneath her face Winter smiled, welcoming him without words. It almost hurt his eyes to look upon her duality; both summer and winter, life and death, god and monster.

 

Summer greeted him with all the warmth and sweetness that she usually reserved for those on the side of light. Even Winter refrained from slipping through her usual caustic vitriol. Winter knew him for what he was, for she had always know herself for what she was, even if Summer remained in denial, just as those around her remained in denial, wrapped within the comfort of their their mortal trappings.

 

He tugged at her threads until he found one that intersected with a facet of himself, another version of him that was good and kind and open. He filed the information away and took her up on her invitation to visit STARlabs, their home, their Olympus, where they kept themselves separate from the mortal realm that they protected.

 

There, Knowledge raised his head and greeted him with a smile as bright as the light of the guns he had forged, once more the name that Leonard no longer wore falling from his lips. It didn’t matter that they assumed him to be his doppelganger; the truth would out soon. After all, Truth herself stood at Cisco’s side, an eyebrow raised at his unexpected arrival. She knew, deep down, that he was not the man that they had assumed him to be. For she saw the truth in all things, whether she consciously accepted that truth or not. She did not speak her suspicions, but he knew they remained, her legendary tenacity gnawing at any falsehood until the truth was stripped bare.

 

And then he came. Inspiration riding on wings of lightning, filling the room with his ceaseless energy. The lightning blinded Leonard to the threads of time for just a single instant, but it was enough. Enough for him to become a little less, to see past the threads and focus on the tangible before him. Now, instead of Summer and Winter, Knowledge, Truth, and Inspiration, he saw Caitlin, Cisco, Iris and Barry. They were not among his devoted but godlings in their own right, yet they had still believed in him, mourned him, and celebrated his heroism.

 

Their fates were a tangled web that spread across the entire city and beyond, built of every life they had ever touched, like the domain of a single great spider. Looking upon Knowledge, Leonard could imagine him thus; every vibration of this grand web singing to him through the very fabric of reality.

 

Inspiration, Barry, was predictably jubilant at his return, and swept him into a tight hug. The endless energy of his godhood wrapped around Leonard unexpectedly, intertwining with his own, for freedom and inspiration have ever been intertwined. The effect spilled out even into the physical plane, the others stepping back with a gasp as the pair were enveloped within a swirling pillar of lightning and time.

 

In the centre of a vortex where the Speed Force and the Time Stream met and melded, Freedom and Inspiration lost and found themselves in the clash of their essences, twisted and bound by history and hope and sensation and thought. One godhood newborn, one on the cusp of actualisation, locked in a dance both were too young to know how to undo.

 

Beyond the vortex, the others worked in a panic, trying to find a way to dissipate the vortex. Only Truth stood still, staring at the phenomena with a truth growing in her heart, a certainty that drew her, drove her to reach out and touch. Duality called out to her, both halves exclaiming concern.

 

“I can touch it,” Truth answered, stepping into the whirlwind, “I’m the only one who can.”

 

Knowledge held Duality backing, knowing it was futile to try to stop this now. Truth disappeared and the tower roared higher, a beacon of light that touched nothing yet reached through the roof to kiss the sky.

 

Fate welcomed Truth within itself, for Fate and Truth were one and the same at their core; the permanent, the unchangeable, all that had been and would be. But just as Fate was also Freedom and Inspiration was also Energy, Truth had another aspect that Inspiration swept around, for Inspiration and Love could always be found within each other. Their three godhoods mingled and merged and built on each other until the entire city stared in wonder and fear at the pulsing light that blossomed above the old laboratory. The web of fate rippled as their union shifted the course of time itself. Dozens of fledgling godhoods felt the pulse of energy that came from the towering vortex, the seeds of their divinity being nourished and invigorated. The Cult of Flash and the devoted of Snart all prayed for the safety of their home, and the entwined three wrapped those prayers around themselves, allowing them to separate and pull their divinity back into their mortel shells.

 

The vortex dissipated and Iris, Barry and Leonard lay on the floor together, limbs intertwined in an imitation of the intimacy their souls had just experienced.

 

“Well, that was...spectacular,” Leonard understated after a long moment of gathering their breath.

 

Iris shifted to meet his eyes, but did not pull herself fully from the knot they lay in. “I think we have a lot to talk about,” she said pointedly, “like what the hell was that?”

 

“Don’t quote me on this, but I think we may have just accidently birthed a pantheon,” Leonard admitted with a wince.

 

“I really hope you’re kidding,” Barry groaned.

 

“I really wish he was,” Cisco agreed.

 

The swirling web of life shone clear and bright in his eyes, his head twisting this way and that as things beyond their perception caught his attention. Beside him, Summer and Winter stood together, staring at each other in shock.

 

“I can see it. I can see it all,” Cisco whispered in awe. He reached out and effortless pulled a butterfly through the folds of reality, watching in wonder as it calmly rested on his finger, it’s unnaturally coloured luminescent wings fluttering.

 

“We’re in the land of gods and monsters now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Domains:  
> Leonard - Fate and Freedom, patron god of Thieves  
> Barry - Inspiration and Energy, patron god of the Innocent  
> Iris - Truth and Love, patron goddess of Investigators and Truth-seekers  
> Caitlin/Killer Frost - Duality and the Cycle of Life  
> Cisco - Knowledge, Compassion and Brotherhood  
> Lisa - Gold and Poison


End file.
